How Should We Teach Our Children to Write? Cursive First, Print

How Should We Teach Our Children to Write?
Cursive First, Print Later!
By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
For the last six years or so, I have been lecturing parents at homeschool conferences
on how to teach the three R’s: reading ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic. I explain in great detail how
to teach children to read phonetically through intensive, systematic phonics. But when it
comes to writing, I have to explain to a very skeptical audience why cursive writing
should be taught first and print later.
I usually start my lecture by asking the parents if they think that their children ought to
be taught to write. I explain that many educators now believe that handwriting is really an
obsolete art that has been replaced by the typewriter and word processor, and that it is no
longer necessary to teach children to write. They imply that if a child wants to learn to
write, he or she can do so without the help of any school instruction.
However, I’ve yet to meet any parents who have been sold on such daring, but questionable, futurist thinking. They all believe that their children should be taught to write.
And, of course, I agree with them. After all, no one knows what needs their children will
have for good handwriting twenty years hence. Also, you can’t carry a two-thousanddollar laptop or a typewriter, everywhere you go. The question then becomes: How shall
we teach children to write? And my answer is quite dear: Do not teach your child to print
by ball-and-stick, or italic, or D’Nealian. Teach your child to write a standard cursive
script. And the reason why I can say this with confidence is because that’s the way I was
taught to write in the first grade in a New York City public school back in 1931 when
teachers knew what they were doing.
In those days children were not taught to print. We were all taught cursive right off the
bat, and the result is that people of my generation generally have better handwriting than
those of recent generations. Apparently, cursive first went out of style in the 1940s when
the schools adopted ball-and-stick manuscript to go with the new Dick and Jane look-say
reading programs. Ball-and-stick was part of the new progressive reforms of primary
education.
But ball-and-stick has produced a handwriting disaster. Why? Because by the time
children are introduced to cursive in the third grade, their writing habits are so fixed that
they resent having to learn an entirely new way of writing, the teachers do not have the
time to supervise the development of a good cursive script, and the students are usually
unwilling to take the time and do the practice needed to develop a good cursive handwriting.
The result is that many youngsters continue to print for the rest of their lives, some
develop a hybrid handwriting style consisting of a mixture of print and cursive, and some
do develop a good cursive because they’d always wanted to write cursive and had been
secretly practicing it for years without their teachers’ or parents’ knowledge.
Apparently, all of those schools that introduce cursive in the second or third grade
must believe that it has some value, or else why would they teach it at all? The problem is
that by requiring the students to learn ball-and-stick first, they create obstacles to the development of a good cursive script.
The reason for teaching ball-and-stick first, we are told, is because first graders do not
have the motor skills or muscular dexterity in their fingers to be able to write cursive at
that age. But that argument is totally false. Prior to the 1940s virtually all children in public and private schools were taught cursive in the first grade and virtually all learned to
write very nicely. All were trained in penmanship and did the various exercises - the
ovals, the rainbows, the ups and downs - that helped us develop good handwriting. We
were also taught how to hold the writing instrument (or stylus) correctly, cradled between
the thumb and the forefinger (also known as the index finger) with the tip of the writing
instrument resting on the long finger next to the forefinger, in a very relaxed position,
enabling a writer to write for hours without tiring.
On the other hand, when a child is taught to print first, the writing instrument is held
straight up with three or four fingers in a tight grip with much pressure being exerted
downward on the paper placed in a straight position. When these children are then taught
cursive in the second or third grade, they do not change the way they hold the writing instrument because a motor or muscular habit has been established that is not easy to alter.
That is why so many children develop poor cursive scripts because of the way they hold
their pens. Children do not easily unlearn bad habits. Which is why I tell parents that
there are two very important no-no’s in primary education: do not teach anything that
later has to be unlearned, and do not let a child develop a bad habit. Instruct the child to
do it right from the beginning.
How Cursive Helps Reading
A question most often asked by parents when I assert that cursive should be taught
first is: won’t learning cursive interfere with learning to read printed words? The answer
is: not at all. All of us who learned cursive first had no problem learning to read print. In
fact it helped us. How? Well, one of the biggest problems children have when learning to
read primary-school print and write in ball-and-stick is that so many letters look alike such as b’s and d’s; f’s and t‘s; g’s, q’s, and p’s - that children become confused and
make many unnecessary reading errors. In cursive, however, there is a big difference between a b and. a d. In cursive writing, a b starts like an l while a d begins like writing the
letter a. In other words, in cursive, children do not confuse b’s and d’s, because the
movements of the hand make it impossible to confuse the two letters. And this knowledge acquired by the hand is transferred to the reading process. Thus, learning to write
cursive helps learning to read print.
Another aid to reading is that cursive requires children to write from left to right so
that the letters will join with one another in proper sequence. The blending of the sounds
is made more apparent by the joining of the letters. In ball-and-stick, some children write
the letters backwards, and often the spacing is so erratic that you can’t tell where one
word ends and another begins. Cursive teaches spatial discipline.
Another important benefit of cursive is that it helps the child learn to spell correctly
since the hand acquires knowledge of spelling patterns through hand movements that are
used again, and again in spelling. This is the same phenomenon that occurs when pianists
or typists learn patterns of hand movements through continued repetition.
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Another question often asked by mothers of six-year-olds is what will their children
do when asked on a job application to “please print.” My answer is that I don’t advocate
not teaching a child to print, I simply say teach cursive first, print later. Besides, that
child will have plenty of time to learn to print between the first grade and applying for a
job as a teenager.
The Ease of Cursive
I am often asked: “Isn’t cursive harder to learn than print?” No. It’s just the opposite.
It is difficult, if not unnatural, for children to draw straight lines and perfect circles,
which is required in ball-and-stick, when they would much rather be doing curves and
curls. In fact, all of cursive consists of only three movements: the undercurve, the overcurve, and the up and down. That’s all there is to it.
Another important point is that it takes time and supervision to help a child develop a
good cursive script, and one has that time in the first grade, not the third grade. The firstgrade child may start out writing in a large scrawl, but in only a matter of weeks, that
scrawl will be controlled by those little fingers into a very nice manageable script. Practice makes perfect, and children should be given practice in writing cursive.
If you’ve wondered why your grandparents usually have better handwriting than you
do; well now, you know the answer. If you teach cursive first, you can always develop a
good print style later. But if you teach print first, you may never develop a good cursive
style. Thus it is absolutely essential to teach cursive first.
Also, by concentrating on the development of a good cursive handwriting, you eliminate the nonsense of first starting with ball-and-stick, then moving to slant ball-and-stick,
or some other transitional script, finally ending up with cursive. Children will only make
the effort to learn one primary way of writing which they will use for the rest of their
lives. They don't need to be taught three ways, two of which will be discarded.
Incidentally, I have no objection to children drawing letters on their own when learning the alphabet. But once they start learning to read, formal instruction in cursive should
begin.
Cursive Helps the Left-Handed
Also, it may surprise the reader to learn that left-handed children gain special benefits
from learning cursive first. When left handed children are taught ball-and-stick first, their
tendency is to use the hook position in writing since the stylus is held straight up and the
paper is also positioned straight. This means that, as the child proceeds, printing from left
to right, the child’s arm will cover what has already been written. This can be avoided if
the left-handed child learns to write from the bottom up, the way right-handed children
write. But this is difficult, if not impossible, to do when printing ball-and-stick.
However, if a left-handed child is taught to write cursive first, he or she must then turn
the paper clockwise and must write from the bottom up, since it is impossible to use the
hook position if the paper is turned clockwise. Right-handers, of course, turn the paper
counter-clockwise. But left-handers are quite capable of developing as good a cursive
handwriting as any right-hander by writing from the bottom up. (In fact, the secret of
good handwriting may be in the position of the paper.)
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All of this must lead to one simple conclusion: teach cursive first and print later, There
are few things that help enhance a child's academic self-esteem more than the development of good handwriting. It helps reading, it helps spelling, and because writing is made
easy, accurate, and esthetically pleasant, it helps thinking.
As Francis Bacon once said: “Reading maketh a full man. . . and writing an exact
man.”
This article is from The Blumenfeld Education Letter, Vol. 9, No. 9 (Letter #97), September 1994. Editor: Samuel L. Blumenfeld.
Cursive Alphabet Style
Recommended by Dr. Sam Blumenfeld
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Addendum A
Should people with dysgraphia use cursive writing instead of printing?
For many children with dysgraphia, cursive writing has several advantages. It eliminates the necessity of picking up a pencil and deciding where to replace it after each letter. Each letter starts on the line, thus eliminating another potentially confusing decision
for the writer. Cursive also has very few reversible letters, a typical source of trouble for
people with dysgraphia. It eliminates word-spacing problems and gives words a flow and
rhythm that enhances learning. For children who find it difficult to remember the motor
patterns of letter forms, starting with cursive eliminates the traumatic transition from
manuscript to cursive writing. Writers in cursive also have more opportunity to distinguish b, d, p, and q because the cursive letter formations for writing each of these letters
is so different. (Excerpt from an article on handwriting problems on The International
Dyslexia Association web site, www.interdys.org. The fact sheet is by Diana Hanbury
King and is the summary of work by Ruthmary Deuel, M.D., Betty Sheffield, and Diana
Hanbury King.)
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ADDENDUM B
From Teaching Language-Deficient Children:
Theory and Application of the Association Method for Multisensory Teaching
by N. Etoile Dubard and Maureen K. Martin
Educators Publishing Service,
Cambridge, Ma. 1994, pp. 47f
Cursive Script
Another distinctive feature is the use of cursive writing from the beginning level and
throughout the entire program (McGinnis 1963). The rationale for using cursive writing
is that it gives the child a way of knowing that the letters for which he/she learned speech
production can be arranged to become a word representing a thing. Manuscript does not
offer such a means of informing the child that certain parts form a whole. The normal
child’s central nervous system adequately processes information so that this awareness
exists. In aphasic and other children with language learning disabilities, the processing is
not adequate to the task. Almost all of the professional literature related to children with
learning difficulties indicates there are common reversals, inversions, and confusions regarding such written patterns as b/d, d./g, m/w, and saw/was, etc. While cursive script
may not eliminate all difficulties, it helps reduce them. The fact that some schools for the
deaf have employed cursive writing from the beginning of the instructional program indicates that the merits of cursive writing over manuscript have been recognized.
Heyman (1977) promoted cursive writing in this way:
Mastering cursive writing has many benefits for special children. It permits the
child to see each word as an integral unit, helps solve spatial problems for students who run all words together, and eliminates serious letter reversal . . . . He
learns immediately that in cursive writing letters are not isolated, but are always
connected to form words. (106)
Stasio (1976) reported these results from a study on severely and profoundly retarded
children:
1. Children functioning at a severely and profoundly retarded level could use cursive
letters more effectively than they could manuscript.
2. When using cursive letters, fewer errors were made in right-to-left direction than
with printed letters.
3. There were fewer errors made in letter reversal among cursive letters than with
printed ones. (55)
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In relation to his own teaching experiences, Stasio also reported that:
I noticed in printing the letter A, a child must use three different motions as well
as relocate the starting point of the printed letter in order to complete it. In cursive
writing the A can be formed in one continuous motion. This continuous motion is
related to all cursive letters except for the letters t and x, which require the child
to remove his pencil from the paper twice. But this does not involve relocating
any given point to complete the letter. When writing the printed alphabet, a child
has to remove his pencil from the paper and relocate the starting points no less
than 55 times. (55)
In a study conducted with profoundly deaf children, Martin (1987) found a significant
difference in the children’s recognition of cursive letters and words over the same in
manuscript.
Serio (1968, 67-68) promoted the use of cursive for these reasons: (1) the rhythm involved in cursive writing lends itself to a more efficient use of movement, (2) proper pacing is aided in the writing of words, (3) a single method approach eliminates the problem
of retraining, and (4) the forms of individual letters in cursive writing seem to be more
independent of confusion due to directionality. Early (1973, 105) suggested that with the
use of cursive writing “the child more readily experiences the total form or shape of a
given word as he monitors the kinesthetic feedback from his writing movements.”
When implementing the Association Method, the letter formations of cursive script
should be as simple as the teacher is able to produce. Simple, clear letter formation which
restricts the use of unnecessary loops and carefully avoids fancy letters will reduce the
possibility of confusion which might stem from known or undetected visual perceptual
differences. Children are taught to read print. The time at which this is begun varies according to their needs and abilities. Concern that the children may encounter difficulty in
learning to read manuscript later is unjustified. Many teachers using the procedures have
reported that their pupils made transitions from reading cursive to manuscript without any
difficulties. Prior to 1925, it was common practice to teach cursive writing exclusively in
regular education classrooms. This did not hinder the development of reading manuscript.
Bibliography for the Association Method Cursive Article
Early, G. H. 1973. The case for cursive writing. Academic therapy 9(1): 105-8
Martin, M. K. 1985. Comparative studies of the use of cursive versus manuscript characters in teaching young handicapped children. Ph.D. diss., University College, National
University of Ireland, Dublin.
________. 1987. A comparative study of the use of cursive versus manuscript characters
in teaching profoundly hearing impaired children to recognize sounds and words. Journal
of British Association of Teachers of the Deaf 11:173-82
McGinnis. Mildred 1963. Aphasic children. Washington. D.C.: The A.G. Bell Association for the Deaf.
Serio, M. 1968. Cursive writing: An analytical approach. Academic Therapy (4), 1:67-70
Stasio, J. T. 1976. Cursive and manuscript writing. The Pointer 1:65-56.
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ADDENDUM C
What is it about Cursive?
by Randy Nelson of Peterson Directed Handwriting
If you are 7 or 8 years old you are probably experimenting with cursive handwriting.
Most second graders would gladly give their bubble gum to a “big kid” who would show
them how to do it. What is it about cursive that is so compelling for children? Why does a
toddler, still shaky with walking, insist on crawling up the stairs?
The two questions really are related. Cursive handwriting offers the same irresistible
challenge to a grade school child as the stairs offer to our crawler.
Actually, the challenge of cursive writing continues to entice people well beyond those
early years. And, that motor-learning challenge is probably the most important reason
FLUENT cursive handwriting should be an important objective in our grade schools. The
brain responds to the movement challenge by changing the way it is processing the symbols. When FLUENCY is not an objective for the instruction the important challenge is
lost.
Are school policy makers right? Are handwriting lessons no longer deserving of priority
in the school curriculum? That opinion prevails because so many teachers, particularly at
intermediate levels, say time spent on handwriting makes no visible difference on student
homework papers and book reports. But, policy makers fail to ask if that observation is
the result of teaching methods prescribed in a handwriting program.
Handwriting instruction was relegated to the curriculum closet because major publishing
companies offering handwriting programs on which teachers depend, eliminated fluency
as an objective. Those publishers put forth a multitude of programs based upon a strategy
that has been failing consistently for decades. Trace & Copy activities on the pages of a
workbook do not include a challenge to move fluently. The programs rarely refer to fluency or explain how a teacher could measure it. They do not suggest that fluency, the desired end result of instruction, should be measured and tracked as evidence of learning.
At some point each parent and teacher will need to decide on a course of action. Our students are expected to be able to use handwriting every day. Here is some food for thought
from someone who has spent over twenty years as a handwriting specialist while doing
research on teaching techniques for handwriting skills.
Cursive handwriting offers huge advantages over print writing for practical communication. However, this is only true when a person has learned the skills necessary to use it
easily. This means it is more accurate to say that it should offer great advantages. It fits
the way our muscles work for fluent handwriting – and fluency should be the real objective, no matter what the style of letterform.
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A Bit of History
When the tools for writing were pointed nibs affixed to the end of sticks or feathers cut to
become quill pens, the cursive advantage was actually a necessity. These tools readily
produced blotches instead of strokes when a little downward pressure was applied. Cursive shapes were produced by sliding the pen sideways. Our cursive alphabets were an
ingenious design allowing us to take advantage of the tools of the time. Without them our
Nation’s effort to educate the masses might well have failed.
However, each student had to develop a certain degree of physical skill to use the tools
with any success. The invention of the pencil changed things dramatically. Inkwells, blotters and nib pens disappeared and the effort for physical skill development was pretty
much forgotten as teachers discovered that the pencil allowed kids to function with little
physical training. The advantage of the fluency challenge slipped away, along with the
physical skill needed for fluency, as the penmanship effort was slowly eliminated from
the school curriculum.
The print alphabets were introduced in our schools after the pencil was available. At the
time, it was decided that the shapes of print letters, very much like those blocks of type
used by printers, offered an advantage for learning to read. There was no clear consensus
and the print/cursive argument lasted for many years. Eventually, more schools had
adopted the print alphabet for introducing symbolic language.
Children seemed to have no trouble learning to draw print letters with the pencil, a task
that would have been impossible with a nib pen. All of the movements used were downward - a direct route to blotch city. And, children could draw legible letters with little
need for good position skills that are very important for fluency. Because fluency was no
longer an objective, education never saw the debilitating effects caused by the lack of
physical skill instruction.
Does Cursive Offer an Advantage Today?
Student interest aside, are there good reasons to teach cursive today? There are a number
of reading specialists who are now convinced that cursive should be taught in the beginning. They believe that it offers advantages over print writing for reading skill development. However, they and most of the publishers of handwriting books, do not give
much attention to fluency as an objective. They simply provide a means for allowing
children to learn how to draw letters. Physical training is not really considered so they
have not noticed the brain research focused on physical learning.
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Which is it, print or cursive?
An understanding of the actual difference between print and cursive will be helpful. It is
not what most people think - joining versus not joining. The difference between cursive
and print styles lies in the movements used to create the forms (start point and directionality). The difference between the two lies in the production process. Look more
closely at adult handwriting product that is produced rapidly, and you will see that many
people who use print letters are joining many of them. It’s just easier to slide and join
when you are paying more attention to word selection than you are to shaping letters.
The decision you face is not really a simple choice of letter shape. What we want and
need is fluency. We want our child to be able to use handwriting as a tool - put thoughts
on paper quickly and easily. What you really need to decide is which process will best
equip your student to put thoughts on paper easily.
Ask the MD or hospital administrator where audits of unreadable patient files and prescriptions present a serious problem. Legibility is very important. The need for legibility
inserts a blockade to increasing the production rate. Poor physical position habits cause
control issues that affect legibility no matter what alphabet is used by the writer. The position skills that are not necessary for using print at the entry level would be necessary to
learn to produce cursive forms with smooth movements.
A Process for Fluent Legibility
Fluent handwriting is accomplished with a special kind of movement controlled mostly
by an internal model residing in the brain. While visual feedback, an external mechanism,
does play a part, it is not the main character. As movement patterns for letters and words
are internalized, the writer relies less on the external system and fluency improves. In essence, the motor system automates the movement process needed to produce words,
phrases and sentences on paper.
The fact is, there must be a lateral movement between letters because our language
moves from left to right. When the pen is touching the page it causes a stroke no matter
what the “style” of letter. When we write fluently we tend to eliminate lifts - the style of
letter has little to do with it. Joined print can be difficult to read because print letters are
not designed for joining. The extra strokes detract from legibility. With cursive forms,
designed for joining, the lateral strokes enhance legibility.
Joining is the “nonvisual advantage” of the cursive style. It lends well to more fluent production because there is less demand for visual feedback to control spacing and size.
With practice, responsibility for these qualities of legibility is transferred to the internal
model and its special fluent movement.
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There is surprising evidence indicating that the motor challenge presented by learning a
joined handwriting process, actually helps the brain learn how to get its various structures
to work together more efficiently.
Another simple advantage also makes sense. Six controlled movements in different directions are required to produce legible lowercase print forms. The lowercase cursive alphabet is produced with just three movements. Wouldn’t you think that three would be easier
to control than six?
There is one fact that educators and parents should recognize. A child who learns how to
use the internal control system effectively will have a powerful advantage when it comes
to using our symbolic language as a tool for learning. The right kind of handwriting lesson offers the kind of motor-learning activity that stimulates the brain to build pathways
for better reading, writing and yes, even keyboarding.
Fluency is the real need. When choosing materials for teaching, look at the process. How
does the program help you to teach fluency? If lessons consist of trace and copy on student pages, fluency is not addressed.
If your child is not reading as well as you would like, teach fluency using handwriting
lessons designed for that goal. You will be surprised how easy it is. Contact the author
toll free at: 1-800-541-6328, or by email to <mrpencil@peterson-handwriting.com>.
References:
(From Endangered Minds) Dr. Jerre Levy to Dr. Healy: “I suspect that the normal human brains are
built to be challenged and it is only in the face of an adequate challenge that normal bihemispheric brain
operations are engaged.” Dr. Levy goes on to say: “...children need a linguistic (auditory) environment
that is coordinated with the visual environment they are experiencing.”
Babcock, M. K., & Freyd, J. J. (1988) Perception of dynamic information in static handwritten forms.
American Journal of Psychology, Spring, Vol 101, pp. 111-130.
Shadmir, R. and Holcomb, H. (1997) “Neural Correlates of Motor Memory Consolidation” Science Magazine, Vol. 277, 8 Aug. 1997.
Teulings, H. L., Arizona State University. Unpublished, proprietary, “Ballistic Handwriting.”
Find much more information, at www.peterson-handwriting.com.
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ADDENDUM D
“Manuscript Versus Cursive Handwriting”
Most children first learn to print, and only at age seven or eight are they introduced to
cursive script. Considering how infrequently students actually write, the neurological encoding of the writing task is undoubtedly fragile, subject to breakdown or significant loss.
We may predict, therefore, that some college writers will have regressed to an earlier
stage of writing production, a stage characterized by exclusive or primary use of printed
letters. Other, more capable writers will use only cursive because it allows them to generate ideas more quickly in written forms. Still other students will switch between these
forms of handwriting, perhaps to adjust speed of text production or merely as an uncontrolled means of generating text.
My prediction about the use of manuscript or cursive establishes that speed of text production would match writing ability: the faster a student writes, the more likely it is that
the student writes well. In other words, the less capable writers will favor manuscript for
its relatively low speed of production. In neurological terms, their prose is interrupted by
the time it takes to lift a pen from the page, whereas in cursive the tracing of letters is
more continuous. The variable pace of text production determines the writer’s congruence with the relatively fast speed of ideation, a speed that normally adjusts to the quick
production of speech. The use of manuscript or the incompetent use of cursive becomes a
serious disadvantage for the less capable writer, who not only struggles to generate written form but must also compensate for differences in fast ideation speed versus slow production speed. (62)
From Physical Eloquence and the Biology of Writing (1990) by Robert Ochsner.
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Handwriting Is on the Wall
Excerpt from an article by Margaret Webb Pressler
Washington Post Staff Writer, Wed. Oct. 11, 2006
The loss of handwriting also may be a cognitive opportunity missed. The neurological
process that directs thought, through fingers, into written symbols is a highly sophisticated one. Several academic studies have found that good handwriting skills at a young
age can help children express their thoughts better – a lifelong benefit. Children who
don’t learn correct technique find it harder to write by hand, so they avoid it. Schools that
do teach handwriting often stop after third grade – right after kids learn cursive. By the
time computers are more widely used in classrooms for writing, perhaps in fourth or fifth
grade, many children already have decided they don't like to write.
In one of the studies, Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who studies the acquisition of writing, experimented with a group of first-graders in Prince George’s
County who could write only 10 to 12 letters per minute. The kids were given 15 minutes
of handwriting instruction three times a week. After nine weeks, they had doubled their
writing speed and their expressed thoughts were more complex. He also found corresponding increases in their sentence construction skills.
But Graham worries that students who remain printers, rather than writing in cursive,
need more time to take notes or write essays for the SAT. Teachers may say they don’t
deduct for bad handwriting in class, but research tells another story, he said.
When adults are given the same composition written in good handwriting and poor
handwriting, “they still give lower grades for ideation and quality of writing if the text is
less legible,” he said.
Indeed, the SAT essays written in cursive had slightly higher average scores than those
written in print, according to the College Board.
Article accessed on November 19, 2011 at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001475.html
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Note by Internet Publisher: Donald L. Potter
February 24, 2006 - Odessa, TX,
Having successfully taught Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld’s intensive phonics program, Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics, and his excellent companion cursive handwriting program in
How to Tutor, I can testify to the practical wisdom of his essay “Cursive First.”
I was taught cursive handwriting in first grade by Mrs. Pearl Monroe at the Cass Union
Elementary School in southern Indiana back in 1953. She was also my father’s first-grade
teacher. She carefully taught us how to hold our pen correctly and write with a light grip
and good flowing motion that made writing a most pleasant activity. I never used manuscript until I was required to teach it when I began teaching second grade in 1990. All of
my high school and college notes are in highly legible cursive and written with a fountain
pen. I used to joke about how everyone had a lump on their finger because they gripped
the pen as if it were going to get away from them. I have always been able to write for
hours without tiring.
When I taught second-grade bilingual, I always taught my students to write cursive using
Sam’s program, which is practically identical to the one I learned in first-grade. My students loved learning to write cursive. I wrote no manuscript on the blackboard. I teach
cursive from the chalk or marker board without the use of workbooks.
For more valuable essays by Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld, visit the Education Page of my web
site, www.donpotter.net. Also visit the new “Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics
Reading Clinic:” http://donpotter.net/reading_clinic.html
You can purchase Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics from The Chalcedon Foundation.
I have taught the Herman Dyslexia method, which insists that cursive handwriting is a
very helpful in curing or preventing dyslexia.
I would like to note that Sam’s Alpha-Phonics program is excellent for practicing cursive
handwriting because the students practice writing the same strokes repeatedly until they
become automated thanks to the fact that the program is organized largely by spellingfamilies. Even if a child learned to read with another phonics program, Alpha-Phonics
would be a good follow-up for both spelling and cursive handwriting practice.
The Peterson Handwriting Company has a fine cursive handwriting program that pays
particular attention to handwriting fluency: www.peterson-handwriting.com
Historical Note: Manuscript (Ball & Stick) handwriting was brought to the United States from
England in 1922 by Marjorie Wise, a specialist in teaching manuscript handwriting who taught at
Columbia Teachers College. She was the first to teach that ball-and-stick should be taught before
cursive. Although Wise later recognized and regretted the reversal errors that resulted from teaching manuscript, she was too late to halt its widespread use (Betty Sheffield). It took several years
for her method to spread throughout the whole country. Mr. Blumenfeld (1931) and I (1953) both
were still taught cursive first. (Don Potter).
Addendum B added 9/3/06. Addendum C added 1/2/07. Addendum D added 10/8/09.
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The Cursive Road to Reading and Spelling
The Cursive Cure for ADHD
October 8, 2009
Starting with the 2009-2010 school year, I have expanded and enriched my tutoring instruction to focus on intensive cursive handwriting with phonics. I call the program, The
Cursive Road to Reading and Spelling. The subtitle indicates my belief that we can help
kids reduce their ADD and ADHD with cursive handwriting instruction. The result of the
program with students with severe ADHD was so successful that I am using it this year
(2010-11). I am also using it again in 2011-2012.
I want to acknowledge debt to Jeanette Farmer for her Retrain the Brain program that
alerted me to the importance of the old Palmer handwriting exercises for curing ADHD
and enabling students to overcome problems with focusing their attention, that were
hampering their learning. Everyone interested in a non-drug cure for ADHD should visit
her website: www.retrainthebrain.com.
My program teaches students correct grip and optimum cursive letter formation for
more fluent (legible and fast) word transcription so they can maximize their learning experience. I use ideas from Peterson Directed Handwriting and the old Palmer
method to facilitate the students acquisition of the A Beka cursive handwriting skills
mandated by the Odessa Christian School where I am the Spanish and remedial reading
teacher. I use the Zaner-Bloser terminology: Undercurve, Downcurve, Overcurve, Slant.
The backbone of the program is Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics programs which
provides me with 3,033 different words and 723 sentences presented in a graded progression emphasizing spelling patterns. The program is intensive because the students need
significant practice opportunities in order to fully automate the handwriting process.
Recently, I reread the following important email Mr. Blumenfeld sent me on October 23,
2005
Dear Don,
I’m delighted by the success you are having with the mother of the 7th grade boy. I
strongly recommend teaching her cursive writing as soon as possible. She will have
no problem distinguishing b’s and d’s in cursive. Also, cursive teaches directional
discipline so that she will read w-a-s from left to right because that is the way the letters are connected.
Do not underestimate the effectiveness of teaching cursive as a means of
teaching reading.
Sam
Revised 8/25/2011.
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Notes on Cursive Handwriting from
The Gillingham Manual
I was trained early in my career as a teacher with the Herman Dyslexia Method, an Orton-Gillingham Method. Recently I decided to investigate the Orton-Gillingham Method
further by reading the 1997 revision of The Gillingham Manual:Remedial Training for
Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling, and Penmanship – 8th edition. I
also took the excellent “Introductory Course” by Educational Publishing Services. Below
are some important notes from the Gillingham Manual. Donald Potter, 3/4/12.
Cursive writing is the preferred form. It helps to reduce the likelihood of letter reversals.
Production is quicker and copying from the board is easier since each letter is liked to the
next one. … The primary purpose of handwriting is to establish and reinforce automaticity
of letter formation. (36)
Schools that begin teaching manuscript and change to cursive in the second or third
grades cause irreparable harm. Dr. Orton repeatedly asserted that the impressions made on
nerve tissue are never wholly eradicated. They are only whitewashed over. They linger on,
confusing later impressions. This change in penmanship may often be seen in high school
papers, where the manuscript form asserts itself in the middle of cursive words. (36)
His greatest help in studying a difficult word is to associate the names of the letters in
correct order with their kinesthetic records as his hand forms them and his voice speaks
them one by one. (37)
We continue to emphasize that an act is not properly learned as long as it requires visual
supervision. A good rower can row just as well in the dark: her eyes merely direct her
course, not the dip or pull of the oars. Knitting is not mastered as long as one must watch
the needle draw the stitch through. A really skilled knitter can watch television while doing
simple knitting. In the same way the writer’s thoughts should not be hampered by attention
to the form of the letters. … A large number of halting writers have difficulty in reading
and spelling as well. We have seen that poor spelling is often due to making one letter
when another is intended; there is insecure linkage between kinesthetic and visual or auditor memory. While laying special stress upon the kinesthetic and visual or auditory memory, we can also be forming associations with visual and auditory records. While the student is copying the letter from the way it looks in her memory, she is sometimes asked to
say its name, or at other times its sound, just as in the Association drill for spelling. Most
of the copying and dictation exercises should be done without looking at the pencil while
writing. (282)
There is much controversy over whether students should be taught to write using print or
cursive – to much for us to address here. However, the case for cursive is strong.
There is no reason why cursive writing should not be taught from the beginning to all students.
However, in the case of dyslexics there are several reasons for insisting on cursive. To begin
with, in cursive writing there is no question as to where each letter begins – it begins on the line
The confusion with forms is not merely a left and right reversal as b/d and p/q; it is also up and
down reversals as with m/w and u/n; hence the uncertainty as to whether a letter begins at the top
or the bottom. Second, spelling is fixed more firmly in the mind if the word is formed in a continuous movement rather than a series of separate strokes with the pencil lifted off the paper between each one. (Diana Hanbury King, Writing Skills for the Adolescent. Cambridge, MA: Educators Publishing Service Inc., 1985, p. 3)
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Extracts with Special Reference to Cursive Handwriting
from Betty Sheffield’s
1996 Annals of Dyslexia article:
Handwriting: A Neglected
Cornerstone of Literacy
[My comments are in brackets. Don Potter, 3/4/12]
This paper discusses the necessity for teaching children to have readable automatic
handwriting. … It is argued here that automatic legible writing is an essential basis for
written expression.
THREE REASONS HANDWRITING MUST BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT TO ALL CHILDREN:
1. Handwriting allows access to kinesthetic memory, our earliest, strongest, and
most reliable memory channel.
2. Serviceable handwriting needs to be at a spontaneous level so that a student is free
to concentrate on spelling, and to focus on higher-level thought and written expressing.
3. Teachers judge and grade students based on appearance of their work, and the
world judges adults on the quality of their handwriting.
LACK OF PREPARATION OF TEACHERS
Phelps and Stemple believe that many teachers in the early grade pay little attention to
handwriting because they themselves have been given little training in methods of teaching it. The curricula in our schools are so packed with requirements that it is often difficult to include the basics. Although the time required for teaching handwriting is not so
great, it has to be incorporated regularly into a class schedule. Novice teachers, if they
teach the mechanics of writing at all, are often thrown upon the resource of using publishers’ copybooks. They expect children to copy, self-teach, and internalize the material.
And yet, without direct teaching, the attempt to learn writing often ends in disaster. Any
1st grade child can find and lock onto endless ineffective ways of scribbling around the
same letter. Many cases of apparent dysgraphia are the result of inadequate teaching. [All
the students coming to me for tutoring have received inadequate instruction in handwriting. I simply ask them to write the alphabet from a to z as fast as they can. Many third
graders can barely manage 20 to 30 letters per minute! They have poor letter strokes and
low legibility. I NEVER use copybooks to teach handwriting. I teach each cursive stroke
directly from the chalkboard, and then show how to form and connect the letters. Fortunately, I was taught cursive-first in first-grade back in Indiana in 1953 by a highly trained
and competent teacher, who was still teaching cursive-first! I simply taught what I was
taught. Most students and teachers today are not so fortunate. I am also fortunate to teach
at an elementary school that teaches fluent-cursive first from kindergarten up.]
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BENEFITS
AND
DRAWBACKS
OF
USING MANUSCRIPT
AS A FIRST WRITING SYSTEM
In America, teaching manuscript as opposed to cursive is a product of this century. …
Reading specialist, Marjorie Wise, in 1922, brought print script to America where it was
eagerly adopted and called manuscript. To American teachers, letters in books appeared
to share a closer visual connection to manuscript than to cursive print. Although Wise
later recognized and regretted the reversal errors that resulted from teaching manuscript,
she was too late to halt its widespread use.
Children attending schools using manuscript must be taught as thoroughly and carefully as possible. Carelessly taught manuscript presents students with a high potential for
inappropriate learning. [I taught Romalda Spalding’s manuscript handwriting method one
year, but went back to teaching cursive. It is a good method, if one is unfortunate enough
to have to teach manuscript.] Reversals that do not exist in cursive may be practiced and
overlearned in manuscript writing. According to Allston and Taylor, “Practice makes
permanent.” To unlearn errors is always more difficult than to start fresh at the beginning.
The early effects of casual teaching may always remain, like radio static, to disturb future
progress.
Some of the most obvious arguments against using manuscript to teach beginning
writers should be explored. A glaring problem with learning manuscript letters is that,
even when correctly formed, they begin in so many different locations. On primary paper
we teach that an “l” starts at the top line, and “i” starts at the middle line, an “f” starts in
the space between the top and the middle line, and an “n” and an “h” start in different
places and are visually distinguished only by a short length of line. An unmonitored child
can find numerous other places to begin a letter. In spelling and expressing writing, a
child is forced to lift his or her pencil and make a decision of where to set it down again
before writing each letter. Often children avoid analysis by starting at the base line for all
letters and stroking away from their bodies. Again, an unmonitored child may have several ways of writing the same letter. For a dyslexic child in particular, the act of writing
manuscript may become a series of letter-by-letter decision about where to begin. This
delicatessen of motor forms may make a later switch into cursive overwhelming. [I have
been appalled to see students write i, l, and other manuscript letters starting on the base
line. They will form the b and d both starting with a line. I see this all the time. I assume
they have received NO directed handwriting instruction and were left unmonitored to
create their own manuscript strokes. One student brought me his cursive work, which was
pretty lame: an old photocopy of the Pledge to the Allegiance in D’Nealian with no explanations of the strokes. I asked him to write the alphabet in cursive, but he was totally
lost. The assignment was perfunctorily given simply to fool the principal into thinking the
teacher was teaching some cursive. This is typical and lamentable.]
For teachers who need specific direction in teaching of manuscript writing, there are
excellent multisensory programs that deal with the subject in great detail [Two programs
are mentioned; among them, I taught the Spalding Writing Road to Reading.] These programs are designed to minimize reversals, making kinesthetic patterns of reversable letters as distinctive as possible, and to make those patterns as close to the motion of later
cursive as possible. … Jumping too quickly into lots of letters is often a mistake. The
gradual addition of letters is often a safer route to mastery. Continued brief daily practice,
even after apparent mastery, is important. Of course, this concern applies as well to
teaching of cursive.
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BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS OF USING CURSIVE AS A FIRST WRITING SYSTEM
When school districts or local schools have the option of beginning the use of cursive
in first grade, many future difficulties are avoided. Until 1922, cursive writing was the
form of writing taught in American schools. The original work of Anna Gillingham and
Bessie Stillman recommended the teaching of cursive writing (1960). [The 1997, 8th edition of The Gillingham Manual, published by EPS, continues to recommend beginning
with cursive.] Many contemporary multisensory teaching authorities also prefer to teach
cursive writing in first grade. [The Odessa Christian School in Odessa, TX, where I teach
Spanish and Remedial Reading, begins cursive handwriting in kindergarten. The enormous benefits are plain to see in every paper that the students write.]
There are numerous reasons for a return to the use of cursive in the first grade.
1. The act of writing is a kinesthetic, not a visual, process. A teacher might expect
confusion on the part of a child starting with cursive writing, but in practice there
are none. Children can easily learn cursive letters were there is a symbol that they
read (visual) and a symbol that they write (kinesthetic). Early et al. (1976) demonstrated that, at the end of the 1st grade year, a matched set of children who were
taught beginning cursive surpassed in reading and spelling a control group taught
manuscript. [My private tutoring confirms the benefits of cursive-first, as do my
experiences at a cursive-first school.]
2. The lack of reversals constitutes a major argument for using cursive in 1st grade.
If a child has a clear idea of a “b” and knows its sound, he may occasionally flip
the letter in reading, but he should have a strong conceptual base in writing that
does not reverse “b” and “d.” In contrast, a student who has confusion in writing
manuscript coupled with a visual confusion in reading may still be reversing letters at age forty.
3. In cursive writing, children are taught to begin all lower case letters on the writing
line, which spares them from continual choices about where to place the pencil for
each letter. A teacher must be wary of the commercial cursive systems on the
market: some present inconsistent places to begin letters just as manuscript writing does. One important virtue of most Orton-Gillingham systems and certain
other programs such as the Laubach program is that all lower-case cursive letters
begin with an approach stroke on the main writing line.
4. Cursive writing makes a clear division of word from word easier to attain. First
grade teachers, dealing with manuscript, are familiar with the problem of helping
children remember to put two fingers of the nonwriting hand to mark off spaces
between each successive word division. Cursive provides a natural division between words. Teaching spacing between words becomes easier.
5. A major argument in favor of teaching children cursive first is that it frees them
from the traumatic shift from manuscript to cursive in 2nd and 3rd grade. When
children’s first writing is cursive, there is no extra training necessary for that distressing moment when they are on the edge of mastering print and must abandon
that form and learn cursive. A child who begins in cursive runs no risk of maturing into an adult whose embarrassing potpourri of cursive and manuscript sets
him apart as uneducated and careless.
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DYSLEXIC CHILDREN AND CHILDREN WITH LD
Dyslexic children and those diagnosed as learning-disabled need even more special
attention paid to their learning of handwriting. For a dyslexic child, the struggle to deal
with production of unreliable letter forms overloads a short-term memory system that is
already in trouble. The older a student dyslexic student becomes, the more his or her warfare with inadequate handwriting adds an unnecessary burden to the task of written expression. The struggle with forms and spelling of words stands in the way of the ability to
remember a thread of thought long enough to capture it on paper.
I continually hear the common misconception that dyslexic individuals see backwards
in some abnormal fashion. On the contrary, the vision of a dyslexic child operates much
the same as everyone else’s does. An intelligent child can see that the manuscript letters
“b” and “d” and “p” and “g are the same symbol. Inadequate visual memory and sense of
directionality confuse the orientation of those letters and accurate duplication of others.
Of course, lack of adequate direct teaching compounds the difficulty of the task.
Graham (1990) demonstrates that, in these children, an essential basis for written expressive language is handwriting that is automatic, legible, and fast enough to keep up
with a student’s thoughts.
CONCLUSION
Time for direct teaching of handwriting needs to be built into busy school schedules.
Too many students are kept from a successful school experience by inadequate handwriting. … If a school system has a choice, starting children with some form of cursive writing seems to cause students less difficulty…. Too many students are handicapped in their
work in high school and college by handwriting that is slow and illegible. [My college
professors told me that my cursive handwriting was 100% legible, and often said they
would just as well have my handwritten work instead of a typed document. I learned cursive-first in 1953 and never thought of printing anything until I became a full time
teacher in 1990, when I was required to teach manuscript to second-grade bilingual students the first half fo the school year. It is worth becoming a member of the International
Dyslexia Association just to get full access to the Annals of Dyslexia. There was a time
when the educational practices of today’s Ortin-Gillingham practitioners were common
practice in the classrooms of America. I would suggest that every elementary teacher in
America consider incorporating Ortin-Gillingham practices into their regular classrooms
in order to improve the overall education of American children. The universal return to
cursive-first would be a good first step that would be of great benefit to all students, regular or dyslexic.]
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